Doctor and TARDIS After the End
by Politesse
Summary: A few glimpses into the last few minutes of the Time War and that which followed: dark times for the Ninth Doctor and the TARDIS who loved him enough to rescue him from the flames at the end of the world.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: Lilac and star and bird **

The TARDIS wobbled alarmingly as she began to slide her way out the trans-existential bubble of purple phantasmagoria that surrounded her, sending out a brilliant wake of orange chronoplasm in a hue that would have been invisible even to the trained eyes of a Time Lord. To the TARDIS, it was just another worrying reminder of just how close she was to accidentally winking out of existence on that last one. Technically, she had no pilot at her grounding console instant, and thus should not be able to fly much at all, still less navigate, but she had an appointment to meet and damned if she was going to miss this one.

A coven of bladed arc-slicers sensed her impending exit from the time stream and warbled a soundless attack call as they catapulted out of normal space in an attempt to slice through her lateral relativistic chronologisms prior to landing, effectively denying her re-entrance to reality except according to a one dimensional angle along the mirror image of their angle of attack. How many? 40,000? 47,000? It was hard to tell without perceiving them directly, which would cause both all objects to cancel out each others' projected locations and thus erase them both from reality. Luckily, a resourceful machine like the TARDIS didn't need to see things in order to evade them. They were a nuisance. But a deadly nuisance, and the TARDIS let loose a groan that sounded suspiciously like a worried sigh as she deftly sent in an instruction back through the stream to the fourth mind of her Doctor, letting him know to destroy the mine that had created the raw material for the bloody creatures before he left Skaro "this time". The deadly contrivances winked out of plausible existence with a few nanoseconds still left before their explosive contact, but now the TARDIS faced a grim choice; every action had a cost, and she needed to choose what form that cost of sending that message would take: time, or distance?

Distance, the TARDIS chose, knowing that throwing off her time calculations at this point would be more of a threat to her ontological integrity than any manner of physical displacement. It was a burgeoning time lock she was violating at the last minute here, not a space lock. She didn't like it, though. A distance miscalculation would end up costing her more time once she got there, plus who even knew what manner of nasties she might encounter within that distance, before she could reach her Doctor? She was about to find out though, as she headed toward the nearest available micro-passage back into normal space. It was seldom that either of them intentionally spent much time traveling through space in the conventional way, and for good reason: it was dangerous.

She knew, of course, that every possible point of entry into the system would be booby-trapped and mined to high heaven. It was a time war zone, after all, and these opponents knew nothing of limited technology or resources. She thought she dimly remembered making it through, though, so she must survive at least until the Moment and the edge of her available memory. At any rate, she had nothing to lose by springing the trap, did she? Either she made it or she didn't, and there was no time to dither. The TARDIS external sensors blinked off to avoid damage as she plunged into the fray.

Unsurprisingly, the blue box's entry into Gallifreyan orbit was accompanied by the silent detonation of a bewildering array of primed and set thermonuclear devices. They ignited like perfectly concentric fireworks blooming in the not-quite-dark of embattled space that currently served as the besieged planet's night sky. When she was younger, even a very large payload of explosives would barely have put an unplanned spring into her step, but now, the small armageddon of the explosions made the wooden panels of the TARDIS creak and groan as though near to coming apart, and the instrument panels on the deserted bridge burst into sudden flame. The flame became a torrent, a rampaging _kirin_, consuming the carefully arranged décor in a holocaust of ashen wood flakes and sullenly bubbling bronze. For a few microseconds, even the perpetually malfunctioning chameleon circuit went offline; had anyone been watching just then, they would have glimpsed the shadowy imprint of the TARDIS' true nature, impossibly silhouetted for second or two against the radioactive glow of the dying mines. But she recovered herself, and continued on.

There was no one who might notice or overly care about the addition of one tiny, outdated time machine to the field, however spectacular her entrance might have seemed in any other context than the last great Time War. Military situation notwithstanding, the many times veteraned TT capsule was not worried about the possibility of being directly attacked. Indeed, she was not prone to "worrying" about anything in the usual sense, unless it was the possibility that she would not reach her beloved hijacker in time. Nevertheless, she estimated the possibility of accidental damage as a much higher risk factor than direct fire at this particular instant, not expecting that anyone would be idle enough to even take note of her. Indeed, as the external sensors came back online, a sight that would have been bewildering to a human eye came into view; a space battlefield, still actively contested, laser and neutronic and photon fire glittering across the inky black like furious static.

Against this backdrop of flame loomed the outlines of a billion spacecraft, wheeling and diving, most of them in ruins by this point. Some were little but skeletal husks, buzzing with the movement of countless Daleks, using them for cover or fuel in their dogfights against smaller craft. It was supposedly a war between Time Lord and Dalek, but they were not the only species present; representatives of a thousand worlds and ten thousand armies hung dying in the poisoned skies. Here and there, the victims of causality loops replayed the last few moments of their personal contests, over and over in excruciating echoes. Elsewhere, regions of space too frequently erased and redrawn by the masters of time had grown muddled and distorted, confused shadows of matter and energy flickering in the dark luminescence, preyed upon by nameless things. Directly ahead, an exploding TARDIS had frozen time in an expanding penumbra, Dalek and Sontaran battle cruisers trapped beside her in perpetuity, a gruesome tableau of metal and fire.

The TARDIS carefully avoided the swiftly growing event horizon. She could not afford to grieve the death of her sister just yet. Because of her own sacrifice upon exiting the time stream, she had materialized quite some distance away from where she needed to be. Though she did not know exactly where the Doctor was, she knew where he would be in another few minutes, and it would really be better if she got there before he did. It was a testimony to the chronologically disheveled nature of intertemporal warfare that the TARDIS frankly could not remember whether she would get there in time, or not. She stored her brief approximation of the feeling of doubt in a memory bank for future contemplation, and began to dodge and weave her way down to the burning surface of the planet, to look for the collapsing form of her pilot. She could feel him, the sacred imprimatur carrying his emotions to her even over all the psychic noise in the field below; his exhaustion, his pain. Her Thief! Oh, too soon, far too soon. If only she could get there before the Moment was lost! The TARDIS fairly dove into the flames.


	2. Chapter 2: Buttermilk and Blood

**Chapter Two: Buttermilk and blood**

The cities of Gallifrey, save one, were now black, polished glass and pools of heavy metals, already being mined by hungry Dalek fleets, but the countryside was a bit more of a patchwork. Most of the Time Lords knew by this point, or at least by Capsule-influenced guess suspected, that there was little hope for the mainland at this point. This did not stop them, or their allies, from fighting the tidal wave as fiercely as they could. A planet is a large place, and even a Dalek Fleet cannot keep one under absolute domination while also pressing a battle front. Many of the participants, like Skrawn Battle Scuttle 675, no longer had a home planet to return to nor anywhere to flee, and so stood their ground, gambling that honor rather than hope might carve their legacy. From space, the surface rippled in waves of light, emanating from a thousand desperate last stands. Periodically, one of these areas would grow suddenly bright, then fade into nothingness. Other areas, more removed, had been mined and trapped but otherwise abandoned as the Dalek fleet rushed toward the final siege, burning as they went. These were dark and lifeless, all natural energy sucked away like most of the sky had been. It was in one of these crisp, abandoned dells that a small door suddenly opened in the side of an inconspicuous looking slag heap.

A curious man stepped out; actually, it looked more like he had fallen out, stumbling across the ground as though gravity had taken a sudden L-shaped turn around his personal space, and very nearly landed face down into the sodden ground. A mess of thick charcoal-black ash sprayed as his feet scrambled for purchase on the uncertain terrain. He managed to partially right himself again, and an expression of shock and anger was exposed as he wiped an ungainly mop of bloodied brown hair out of his eyes. "You didn't!" he cried. Then he started to move back toward the door, but stumbled again, not quite with his bearings yet.

"Please!" he cried, shouting back at the open door, "You don't have to do this! There's nothing you can do at the Citadel that the others haven't done already and it all ends the _same way._ _Every time._ I need you to come with me, it's the only way either of us will live!"

"There's no time, Doctor!" a rough male voice called from inside the heap. "Just get to the Moment, it's the only thing that can possibly matter. I gave you a lift, I told you where to find her now GO and ask nothing more of me!" A pile of grenades, energy weaponry, low-grade explosives, and an elaborately gilded silver cutlass tumbled out the door as well, landing in an unsightly pile at the Doctor's feet.

"You know I don't use those bloody things Corsaravalandit-!" he shouted back, but the door had already disappeared, and in short order the unnoticeable slag heap disappeared with it, slowly dematerializing with a familiar squeal. The Doctor straightened his back and let loose a cry of exasperation as he stamped his frustration into the gallifrath. The empty glade listened. No time, the Doctor thought. As ever, there was simply no time.

"Susan!" his mind cried out, letting the call disperse as widely as he dared as the rumble of war continued in the distant skies. "Susan, are you here?" Silence as dead as the planet answered. Lightning that wasn't really lightning brought an unnatural glow to the starless sky. The Doctor surveyed his surroundings uncomfortably.

Four hundred years will teach you a few things about death and destruction, especially if you spend most of them "adventuring". And the Doctor, though not uncaring, had brushed shoulders with death enough times that it seldom surprised him to meet it again in some new guise. It was never too different a guise, whether it was the death of a friend or a companion or a nation; it was sad but it was the end of all the running, and the Doctor thought he had learned to deal with it a bit. This was not even the first dying world he had ever stood on. There were some, not least his own pesky subconscious, who blamed him personally for the last one.

In other times, he would have greeted this, and the sight of yet another dying world hanging before him, with a rueful shake of his head. This time, he could not shake his head. He could not hang his head or beat his breast or acknowledge what the stiffening of his shoulders meant, that this was his world and that made it different somehow. No, he could not do any of those things, because if he opened that floodgate he would not be able to close it. There was no time for that yet. He was still in danger. Susan was still in danger, perhaps even more danger. So he stood, seemingly impassive, trying not to see what he was seeing or hear what he was hearing, all the while searching both senses desperately for a clue as to his quarry. But there was nothing, and that gave him precious little to distract him from the truth that his planet was dying around him for real this time. Past dying, in fact. There was precious little left to mark what it had been.

He knew more or less where he was, of course. Even without access to maps, a world of habitual telepaths leaves certain signatures. Enough to know that the plain of slagged glass they had flown over on the way down was what was left of Cor Lammangendar-, where idle Gallifreyans used to go on holiday when the itch to travel struck and they wanted to go "out of town but not out of world". Where, in a cafe attached to a long forgotten inn, he had had one of the last conversations with his mother and spoken the name of his birth for the last time, so long ago. More of the city was now obliterated than destroyed, simply blinked out of existence, with a rapidly dwindling number left to remember it.

And this valley he was standing in, shouldn't he be knee-deep in gently flowing water, wading in the wide pools where it wound its way from the low lying hills? It wasn't so long ago that iridescent butterflies had pollinated soft orange grasslands under suns that never set. But there was no river here, and the sickly, fatty moisture that permeated the ground was no natural produce of a stream. The grasses were atomized and burned to an inconsistent powder. It would hurt too much to inquire after the butterflies, so he didn't.

But what really stopped the Doctor in his tracks was the smell. Gallifreyans and humans share that interesting quirk that links the olfactory sense so immediately to the home of perception, all the stronger for the modifications Gallifreyans had made to their faculties over the long millenia. The smell now was enough to kill him all by itself. It is a fact well known that each world has its own particular odor, a flavor that colors whatever else one encounters while there. Skaro was all tungsten and forgotten aluminum shavings. Earth was sharp and subtle and fresh, like a piquant combination of the eucalyptus and curry plants that lived there. Tinged a bit with exhaust in those later years, yes, but still there. And speaking of the produce of Earth, the Doctor had quite shocked Harry by letting slip a tear the first time he tried a taste of that uncommon earth concoction, buttermilk. Harry was an intractable old git and wouldn't have understood even if the Doctor tried to explain why, that this silly little beverage tasted so exactly like his exiled home-world smelled, that he could hardly stand to swallow it. All honey and flower petals and mother's milk. There was no hint of buttermilk on the wind here now. If it smelled like anything, it was like that region just outside the atmosphere of any major planet where the hydrocarbons start to pile up, what earth's early astronauts described as "hot metal and twice burned meat". It smelled a little like that. But mostly, it just smelled like death.

Death... with a jolt, the Doctor realized he wasn't moving. Why was he just standing there, as though about to drop to his knees? Like he'd lost his mind? That would not do. If there's one experience had taught him thus far, it's that no good was ever accomplished by standing in place. Any action was preferable to shocked immobility. Running usually seemed to work out pretty well. He'd best try it now before he shut down altogether.

But where to run? He still had no inkling just where his granddaughter was or what kind of trouble she was in specifically and the recently featureless landscape offered no helpful clues. Top of the hill, that would help. Maybe something would present itself if he could get out of this bloody copse to somewhere where what remained of the topography wasn't in his way.

He glanced at the small arsenal his friend had left behind, but did not turn aside for it. The Doctor had seen enough guns in the last few decades to be physically sick of the things. He didn't need to fight, he needed to find Susan, find the moment, and get the bloody hell out of here. Even the questionable plot for which he had constructed the device seemed unimportant now, second to the task of getting as far away from the War as possible. The Corsair had heard that there were bubbles beyond the edge of reality that the War hadn't touched yet... The Doctor ran. Gasping for breath at the sudden exertion, he scrambled up the greasy, decimated slope, not willing to pause again and risk another pointless delay. Black muck splashed against worn trainers implausibly matched with Versailles satin, and the Doctor soon vanished over the crest of the hill. Silence reigned once more over the dying glade, its final witness fled. Sickly liquid refilled the light footsteps smudged into the hillside.

But only about a minute passed before the Doctor reappeared on the horizon, yelling nonsensically as he leaped the final metres of the climb. Discharges of energy weapons back-lit his dramatic re-arrival. As six Dalek scouts followed his trajectory, gliding unnaturally over the tortured mess and practicing their aim, the Doctor hurriedly slid back down toward the Corsair's proffered cache. For the third time this week, cruel circumstance had suddenly reversed his traditional position on the virtue and uses of weaponry. Scrambling to a halt, he grabbed the gilded cutlass still sticking ostentatiously out of the pile, and turned to face his foes.

-to be continued


End file.
